And then when then I die
|
I feel I shall say
|
I have not understood
|
I have not understood any of this
|
My eyes are still coaldark
|
I have not understood
|
Around and in my eyes the tiny flecks
|
Of swirling crippled confused lights
|
And to my heart I will whisper
|
Softly quietly
|
«There is no death there is no death»
|
(And goodbye to you all)
|
Under the gorgon grinnd arches
|
Of London’s great vaults
|
I have not understood
|
Under the sunpuckered roofs of Kathmandu
|
I have not understood
|
Along the soulstoned streets
|
Of Lower
|
And of Higher Germanie
|
I have not understood
|
Leipzig: blackeyed pain and loss: she
|
I have not understood
|
In Clare near I The empty lakes are open in the distance
|
And too close is the faminereatchingroad
|
All these are ghosts
|
There I have not understood
|
(In the Heart of the Wood
|
Oh there have I understood)
|
I rested at the temple of Great Black Time — Her
|
And did not understand
|
Though animalbled fleshmarbled rivers ran in Her honour
|
His buckled body in blood
|
Returns to the prebirth poise
|
Spreadeagled like starfish —
|
There in His eyes:
|
Incomprehension mute pain disbelief what
|
Blood there meant sorrow trickles there
|
This I could not understand
|
I bend the pages of yet another book
|
And in its lines Great Black Lines
|
I have not understood
|
Please gramerey pray for me And oh goodbye sweetestheart
|
The wind roars in the nearness
|
And there in my heart
|
And all the clouds are spiralling towards us Descent indeed to the centre of it all
|
Skipping lightly and lying truly
|
This we shall understand
|
I hope…
|
Wet bent humped trees
|
The great ones — there
|
On the lapped shore
|
Dai Ichi
|
There also I do not know
|
This is all unknowable
|
And as the dust covers
|
My empty eyes
|
You shall read in these foolish gapes
|
Oh that I have not understood
|
(But if you look for the stag and the cross conjoined
|
There on my arm look there
|
There I have understood very well)
|
Now you are all fading
|
All fading
|
As my age creeps on As This Age stumbles on Fires in the earth
|
Fires in the sky
|
Fires in our hearts
|
Fires everywhere
|
The black eyes
|
Already blacken
|
And this I have not understood
|
Not peace
|
But a sword
|
This and He Unfortunately
|
I have understood
|
Under the bowered greenwood tree
|
When first I lay
|
Bright starre with Thee
|
Under the velvet branches dear
|
When sun and moon both came so near
|
Under the starlit open dome
|
Under the starsharp pointed lights
|
Under the starloved greeny earth
|
When first I wanted to hold You
|
And all the world halfdead and halflive
|
Spat into my mouth
|
Bluesea bitterwater
|
And I am almost dead
|
And I have not understood
|
Under the rain and teeth of gods
|
Under the pain and sleeping liddy eyes
|
Under the brokkd wetful heaven
|
If you are there
|
If you are there
|
If you are there
|
Then I am singing with my eyes
|
If you are there |